ON ARMENIAN ANTI-ARMENIANISM
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As a rule, all Armenians are very critical of their fellow Armenians, except Armenians who are professional fund-raisers. As far as I know, they are the only ones who publicly profess love for all Armenians regardless of political affiliation, religious denomination, and degree of assimilation. But perhaps what we are talking about here is human nature, or, as Pushkin once put it: "Where there is a trough, there will be swine."
Armenians who profess love for all Armenians and are not in the business of raising funds or are not contemplating a career move in that direction, prefer to love Armenians in the abstract rather than in the flesh. That’s because reality can never live up to the perfection of that which has no existence.
But it is fair to say that most Armenians are very critical of their fellow Armenians, and sometimes critical to the point of irrational hatred. There are many popular sayings that illustrate this point. I will quote only three here: "To have an Armenian friend is to have an enemy." "An Armenian loves to eat and he eats to hate." "One Armenian eats one chicken, two Armenians eat two chickens, three Armenians eat each other."
I once met an Armenian who hated Armenians so much that he hated the Turks even more; and he hated the Turks not because they had tried to exterminate us but because they had failed to do so.
It is a mistake to dismiss this kind of Armenian as an anomaly. He is not. He never was. And judging by the high assimilation rate today, he may now be in the majority – because, if you think about it, what is assimilation if not self-inflicted genocide?
But Armenian anti-Armenianism is not exactly a recent phenomenon. According to the 19th century novelist, Raffi: "An Armenian’s worst enemies are not odars but Armenians"; and even more revealing: "Where Armenian blood flows, look for an Armenian hatchet."

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted July 01, 2001 07:50 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------RANDOM THOUGHTS******************************There are as many versions of the past as there are nations, tribes, religions, ideologies, and historians. Only God knows what happened and why but so far He has refused to share his version with us. Even when two historians agree on the facts they will disagree on their interpretations.If two historians agreed on everything, one of them would be redundant.

Thou shalt not confuse your version of the past with that of the Good Lord.Thou shalt not confuse your prejudices with principles.Thou shalt not confuse your limited knowledge with infinite wisdom.And thou shalt not make your views dependent on your ego, especially if the size of your ego exceeds that of your brain, or if it is equal but with a faster growth-rate.

To how many of my detractors I could say: "Thank God you are not in politics!" Let me amend that: It’s because our political life has been dominated by individuals like you that we now find ourselves in such a mess.

In his STUDY OF HISTORY Toynbee tells us nations and empires are not killed: they commit suicide. Corruption, degradation, and disintegration are not imposed byenemies, barbarians, or historic forces orenvironmental conditions but by inner failings.

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted August 26, 2001 11:36 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHARLATANS AND JACKASSES*************************************It is a well-known fact that we have our share of charlatans; also jackasses (some of them loud-mouth skinheads with university degrees) who have not yet mastered the complex art of reading and understanding simple sentences in the English language. When I criticize our bosses, bishops, benedefecators and their assorted janissaries (about 1% of the population) they accuse me of insulting Armenians, and they ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of Armenians (at least 99% of them) among them the alienated and assimilated, the disenfranchised and discontented, the expelled and excommunicated, the unorthodox and the unemployed, the agnostic and atheist,the poet and the prostitute – are not charlatans but their victims, and to refuse to see this is and must be the quintessence of charlatanism. There is an old Chinese saying: "In darkness sometimes difficult to distinguish hawk from vulture." Also charlatans and jackasses.--------------------

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted July 29, 2001 07:42 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------THE SHORTEST SERMON IN THE WORLD********************************************What’s the ideal length of a sermon?If it’s bad, the shorter the better.What makes a sermon bad?If you are a phony or a dupe of phonies,any sermon in praise of honesty.And here is the shortest sermon you will ever hear:We are all born, live and diewith one significant difference:at the hour of our deathwhen we look back at our livessome of us will say: we tried to live and honest life.It wasn’t easy and we failed again and again but we never gave up trying. The others will only wish they could say as much.--------------------